The Final Piece

We will finish up our series today on ways to improve your sales ratios. We have been using the following ratios for coaching purposes:

1.42 raw leads to 1 qualified lead

10 qualified leads contacted to schedule 1 appointment

1.16 appointment scheduled to complete 1 presentation

2 follow up contacts to close 1 sale

3 sales presentations made to close 1 sale

average commission per sale = $2,000

The final two parts that we will discuss are follow up contacts and average commission per sale.

I have heard a variety of statistics over the years as to when someone actually chooses to purchase a product or service. Although I can find no scientific data on the subject – I do believe the following has been pretty accurate in my sales career:

According to Robert Clay, founder of Marketing Wisdom, “80% of all sales are made after the buyer has said “no” at least four times.”

Robert Clay also states that…

44% of sales people give up after the first “no”

22% of sales people give up after the second “no”

14% of sales people give up after the third “no”

12% of sales people give up after the fourth “no”

If those statistics are true, 92% of sales people give up before 80% of the purchasing decisions are made!

I believe that most of the time, it is not even so much that the sales person gets a “no”, as much as they get the dreaded, “I need to think about it.”

[lightbox link=”https://jeffcwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bird-dog.jpg” thumb=”https://jeffcwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bird-dog-300×224.jpg” width=”300″ align=”left” title=”bird dog” frame=”true” icon=”image” caption=””]Either way – follow up is key. Based on your tracking of your numbers, how many follow up contacts do you average per sale made?

In most cases, one of the easiest ways to improve your closing ratio is to follow up on your sales presentations a minimum of 3-5 times. Even when they tell you “no”, ask for their permission to check back periodically in case the scenario changes. Then at each follow up, provide something more of value to them.

As for average commission per sale – that score may be improved by simply cross selling based on your industry. Either add more products or services on the front end – or at predetermined and agreed upon intervals.